How to re-wire your brain to work with, not against you, while Mountain Biking

On my pedal up to the trails today, I listened to a fantastic interview with Dr. Tommy Wood, a neuroscientist, and as per usual, this spurred all kinds of interesting thoughts about how this relates to mountain biking, mental performance, and what I have observed while mentoring with hundreds (if not thousands 🤔) of riders over the years. Here are a few of my key takeaways:

• How we use our brains is the primary determinant of how they function. Just like the way we move and train our bodies shapes our strength, mobility, and physical capacity, the way we use our minds shapes our mental patterns, focus, resilience, and performance.

• How we use our brain is also how we change its function. Just like if you want to become fitter, stronger, or faster, you train specifically for those things, the brain adapts to how we repeatedly use it.

• In essence, whatever you want your brain to be good at is what you should be doing daily, because that's what helps build and maintain those thought patterns and skillsets.

So, in bringing all of this inspiring, yet abstract theory, back down into physical reality and the world of bikes... this confirms what you've likely seen in the riders who progress the fastest while also keeping themselves in one piece. They practice the process, too.

What I mean by this is that they don't just practice one dimension of MTB performance (eg. cornering technique), they also practice thinking in ways that are essential to growth.

They don't say "no" to advanced trails, features, lines, or maneuvers - they say "No, not yet"

This is a subtle, yet powerful difference, and in doing so, they leave the door open to future progression. Perhaps even more importantly, they don't consciously or subconsciously adopt the beliefs and identity of "I can't do that". More examples of neural pathways you may not wish to accidentally wire in are: "I am just really bad at drops", "I have a mental block", or "Double-Blacks just aren't for me". So, in taking the "Currently, I can't see myself riding that... yet" line of thinking one step further, I often lead my mentees through a visualization exercise I've coined "The Line of Success". It's really simple (the best strategies always are) - We stop, we assess the section of trail, the risks, what we wouldn't want to happen - but we don't hang out in this phase any longer than we need to. From there - and this is the key switch to practice for a lot of riders - we swiftly shift our attention to "Well, what COULD the line of success look like here?" In other words: "What could go right?" We're very intentional to begin this line of thinking well BEFORE we've weighed up whether we're even going to ride the feature, or not.

You see, a lot of advanced riders still find themselves in the habit of running an F-Yes, or F-No thought pattern, and decision-making process. The problem here is that it doesn't allow any room for practicing the way we'd like our brain to perform in the future - essentially closing the door even if we do come back with the skills to ride the feature in the future. So, a really simple shift you can make on your next ride is: stopping before something challenging for you, taking a few deep, calming breaths, and allowing yourself to hang out and get curious about how a 'rider' might ride this section with confidence and control, hypothetically. Whether you ride it that day or not is irrelevant - what is important is that you reduce any self-pressure, get some mental reps in and start building the neural pathways required to ride it well. If/when ever that happens to be.

With that being said, what I am definitely not advocating here is a "Think positive thoughts, and ride to your full potential all of the time", rosey colored lenses kind of attitude. This strategy is one part of a whole, one quadrant of our Full Circle Framework, that is incredibly effective when combined with technical skills coaching from an expert, a dialled equipment setup, and a strong and mobile body. While you might be doing the work in one, two, or three of these quadrants, most riders are simply not. So I encourage you - get out there and practice the mental frameworks and lines of thinking mentioned above, combine that with any other training you're doing, and thank me later! ;)

And of course, if you desire to skip the trial and error, the questioning of whether you're "doing it right", and save yourself the time and energy that could be better spent exploring new trails with a new sense of ease and enjoyment - book a call with me at a time that works for you. We have a variety of flexible coaching/guiding options for riders from around the world, and I'd love to connect and deep dive into where you are currently at with your riding, and where you want to go with it.

Happy trails - Jake